Morbid obesity is a serious medical condition pervasive in the United States and other countries. Its complications include hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, multiple orthopedic problems and pulmonary insufficiency with markedly decreased life expectancy.
Several surgical techniques have been developed to treat morbid obesity, e.g., bypassing an absorptive surface of the small intestine, or reducing the stomach size. These procedures are difficult to perform in morbidly obese patients because it is often difficult to gain access to the digestive organs. In particular, the layers of fat encountered in morbidly obese patients make difficult direct exposure of the digestive organs with a wound retractor, and standard laparoscopic trocars may be of inadequate length.
In addition, previously known open surgical procedures may present numerous life-threatening post-operative complications, and may cause a typical diarrhea, electrolytic imbalance, unpredictable weight loss and reflux of nutritious chyme proximal to the site of the anastamosis. Further, the sutures or staples that are often used in these surgical procedures may require extensive training by the clinician to achieve competent use, and may concentrate significant force over a small surface area of the tissue, thereby potentially causing the suture or staple to tear through the tissue.
The gastrointestinal lumen includes four tissue layers, wherein the mucosa layer is the top tissue layer followed by connective tissue, the muscularis layer and the serosa layer. One problem with conventional gastrointestinal reduction systems is that the anchors (or staples) must engage at least the muscularis tissue layer in order to provide a proper foundation. In other words, the mucosa and connective tissue layers typically are not strong enough to sustain the tensile loads imposed by normal movement of the stomach wall during ingestion and processing of food. In particular, these layers tend to stretch elastically rather than firmly hold the anchors (or staples) in position, and accordingly, the more rigid muscularis and/or serosa layer must be engaged. This problem of capturing the muscularis or serosa layers becomes particularly acute where it is desired to place an anchor or other apparatus transesophageally rather than intraoperatively, since care must be taken in piercing the tough stomach wall not to inadvertently puncture adjacent tissue or organs.
In view of the aforementioned limitations, it would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for forming gastrointestinal tissue folds that achieve gastric reduction by reconfiguring the GI lumen of a patient.
It would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for forming gastrointestinal tissue folds using anchors that can be reconfigured from a reduced delivery profile to an expanded deployed profile.
It also would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for forming gastrointestinal tissue folds, wherein an anchor assembly is extended across stomach folds that include the muscularis and serosa tissue layers.
It further would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for forming gastrointestinal tissue folds, wherein the anchor assembly is deployed in a manner that reduces a possibility of injuring neighboring organs.
It still further would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for forming gastrointestinal tissue folds, wherein reduced training of a clinician is required to achieve competent use of the anchor assembly.
It would be desirable to provide methods and apparatus for forming gastrointestinal tissue folds that facilitate approximation of a plurality of tissue folds.